Embedded Files
Activity 1 - Your teacher will show you this clip at the beginning of the lesson
View I'm Still Here- start at 12:56-16:43 (Dawid Rubinowicz, 12, Poland)
This is the story of a child during the Holocaust in their own words from their diary
Activity 2 - Watch the video The Development of the "Final Solution"
After viewing copy the following Definition:
The term “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” was a euphemism used by Nazi Germany’s leaders. It referred to the mass murder of Europe’s Jews. It brought an end to policies aimed at encouraging or forcing Jews to leave the German Reich and other parts of Europe. Those policies were replaced by systematic annihilation.
Activity 3 - Source Analysis
Questions
What does Source B suggest about the lethal activities that occurred in concentration camps?
Why were the camps difficult to escape from?
What does Source B suggest about the value of human life under Nazi rule?
Questions:
What purpose would such brief letters in Source C serve?
How can these letters be used by those studying the Holocaust?
How do these display the human need for memory?
Watch: Architecture of Murder: The Auschwitz-Birkenau Blueprints or take the Virtual Tour
and using the following website Auschwitz | Holocaust Encyclopedia complete the below questions
Activity 4: The Auschwitz Album
Discuss:
● What was Auschwitz? What does it symbolise? What happened there?
● What photographs of Auschwitz have you seen before? Do you think people from different nationalities perceive these
photographs in different ways?
● Why is it important to differentiate between how Auschwitz looks today in photos compared to during the Holocaust?
Activity 5: Perpetrators of the “Final Solution”: Ideology and Responsibility
Born in Austria in 1908, Franz Stangl joined the Austrian police in 1931 and became a criminal investigations officer in the political division. In 1940, Stangl joined the Euthanasia Program at its Hartheim castle institute—one of six centers where people with mental and physical disabilities and other “asocial” Germans were killed.
In March 1942, Stangl became commandant of the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland. Later that year he became commandant of Treblinka where
he was responsible for the deaths of 870,000 Jews. After the prisoner revolt in Treblinka in September 1943, Stangl and his staff were transferred to Trieste,
Italy to organize anti-partisan actions. He also spent time at the San Sabba concentration camp.
After the war, about to be charged in May 1948, Stangl escaped to Rome, Syria, and eventually Brazil where he and his family lived under their own names until discovered in 1967. Stangl was tried in Germany and sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1971.
Click on the link above and either read through the interview with Stangl or listen to the audio and answer the following questions.
Questions
What does it mean to be “held responsible”?
What does it mean to “accept responsibility”?
How is “accepting responsibility” different from being “held responsible”?
How would you characterise Stangl’s ability to see human beings as cargo or cattle?
Why do you think he is unable to make the connection between the children who arrive on transports and his own children? Do you think there should be a connection? Explain your thinking.
Do you think Stangl had a choice in the decisions he made? Explain why or why not.
How does Stangl explain working for the system?
Are there any emotions expressed in the interview? If so, what are they? If not, how might this lack of emotion be explained?
In the past, some regarded perpetrators such as Stangl as “human beasts.” Today, we realise that they were human beings. What were the possible reasons for people to regard the perpetrators as “beasts”? What purpose did it serve?
Based on what you know, did Stangl ‘accept responsibility’ or was he ‘held responsible?’
Extension Activity: “Final Solution”: The true story of the Holocaust
Watch the following doco to get a deep understanding of "The Final Solution".
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